>From James Devine:
> > finally, the Chechens have figured out how to strike back in a decisive way! :) Chechens have a large presence in the business elite (one of the big hotels in Moscow, I forget which one, is Chechen-owned). There are a million Chechens, and three-quarters of them do not leave in Chechnya. There are 200,000 Chechens just in Moscow. This is not some tiny minority we're talking about. > > >Electrical appliances are mostly domestically produced.< > > I remember seeing some of those in Cuba when I was there in the late 1970s. The > Cubans thought they were shit, too. > Maybe they've gotten better -- they're OK, nothing to go crazy over. > > how about investment goods? those are more crucial. Could you define the term for economically-challenged me? > > >The chinovniki _are_ the old bureaucratic-socialist system, or at least the part > >before the hyphen....< > > I don't know the terminology. What are "chinoniki"? "Chinovnik" is the Russian word for "bureaucrat." It is derived from the word for China. > > but don't they want to be like the US, where Bush bought himself a government post? Bush wasn't as direct about it, at least. It's true, though, that mostly people use government posts to buy themselves jobs in the "private sector" as lobbyists, etc. Government posts in Russia are mostly about getting access to flows of money. The average Duma deputy is paid only a few hundred dollars a month, yet manages to drive around in a Mercedes. Putin's official monthly salary is $800. > > >Definitely. They Kremlin has been very clear that if you are a "patriotic > >businessman" instead of a "bandit capitalist," which means in effect doing what the > >Kremlin says and not shipping assets abroad ...< > > hmm. Those are the terms used in Russian political discourse. They were the main theme in the runup to teh last Duma election, in which the "liberal" parties were trounced. > > thanks for the interesting article & the interesting conversation. > Reciprocally.
